What do you think should be the mission of an artist?

To express their intellectual curiosity. Just like Emily Dickinson said, to reinterpret the obvious world in the way that enlightens it and enriches it. As artists, we have the obligation to do so, because we have the gift to see things differently from other people. If the world we present to the viewers can challenge them, provoke them, and even change their situation, so much the better. And if it is beautiful at the same time, that’s icing on the cake. That’s my own mandate: to make beautiful art that also is about something. I want to make the ordinary resonate for my viewers in a universal way.

source: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/01/interview-sally-mann-the-touch-of-an-angel-2010.html